(Newser)
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After Wednesday's massacre at a vocational school in Crimea, Russians are looking for answers—and some of them are looking toward the West. Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the gun and bomb attack carried out by a student in Kerch "appears to be a result of globalization," the BBC reports. "On social media, on the Internet, we see the creation of entire communities," he said. "Everything started with the tragic events in schools in the US." State-funded broadcaster RT has described the attack as having a "shocking resemblance" to the 1999 Columbine mass shooting, with the attackers in both cases setting off explosives in cafeterias, shooting fellow students, and killing themselves in school libraries.

Political analyst Sergey Mikheyev blamed the attack on "Western subculture," CNN reports, which "builds its matrix on the cult of violence," he said on state television. "The one who has a weapon in his hands is right. This is a purely American approach to the matter." The death toll in the Kerch attack reached 20—15 students and five teachers—after one of the injured died Thursday, the AP reports. Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova says most victims died from gunshot wounds, but the shrapnel-packed explosive device caused many horrific injuries, with some victims losing their legs or feet. Few details have been released on attacker Vladislav Roslyakov, an 18-year-old student at the school. (Putin said Thursday that Russians killed in a nuclear strike will "go to heaven" as martyrs.)